Armenians were voting in a parliamentary election on Sunday, with opinion polls putting the party of acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and that of former President Robert Kocharyan neck-and-neck.
The Armenian government called the snap election to try to end a political crisis that erupted after ethnic Armenian forces lost a six-week war against Azerbaijan in 2020 and ceded territory in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Pashinyan has been under pressure ever since, with regular street protests demanding he step down over the terms of the peace agreement that ended the conflict.
Under the deal, which was brokered by Russia, Azerbaijan regained control of the territory it had lost during a war in the early 1990s.
Pashinyan himself described the agreement as a disaster but said he had been compelled to sign it in order to prevent greater human and territorial losses.
According to a recent Gallup International poll conducted 7-10 on June, 24.1% of voters were ready to vote for Kocharyan’s Armenia Alliance and 23.8% for Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party. Whoever forms a majority in the south Caucasus country’s parliament gets to elect the prime minister, who is nominated by the president.
Both Pashinyan and Kocharyan voted on Sunday morning in the capital Yerevan.
The prosecutor general’s office said it had received 64 reports of voting crimes, including people voting multiple times, bribery, and violence at polling stations, the Sputnik media outlet reported, citing a spokesperson.
The defence ministry rejected allegations that servicemen were being forced to vote, explaining that conscripts voting ingroups was systematically beneficial and said it was continuing to monitor the voting process.
International interest
Nationwide turnout stood at 38.17% by 1300 GMT, Sputnik reported. Polls close at 1600 GMT.
Armenia, which hosts a Russian military base, is a close ally of Moscow, though Pashinyan, who came to power on the back of street protests and on an anti-corruption agenda in 2018, has had cooler relations with the Kremlin.
“We wish a successful election to our close ally and partner,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
Turkey, which supported Azerbaijan in the 2020’s conflict, will also be watching closely.
Pashinyan’s main rival is Kocharyan, a native of Nagorno-Karabakh, the enclave that was fought over in 2020. It is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but has long been claimed by its mainly ethnic Armenian population too.
Kocharyan was president of Armenia from 1998 to 2008 and was accused of acting unlawfully when he introduced a state of emergency in March 2008 after a disputed election. At least ten people were killed in the clashes that followed between the police and protesters.
In a recent interview with Russia’s RT TV channel, Kocharyan accused the then-Armenian leadership of inaction during the 2020’s war and pledged to start negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh’s borders if he came to power.
